Port Everglades project follows demolition in Riviera Beach

The candy-striped smokestacks you see when flying out of Fort Lauderdale will disappear in July, toppling in a 60-second series of explosions.

Also gone will be the pollution that spewed out of them since the 1960s.

The destruction of Florida Power & Light's Port Everglades plant will clear the way for the construction of a much cleaner, state-of-the-art plant. A similar replacement project is underway in Riviera Beach, where the FPL plant came down in 2011, and together these two projects are taking out two of South Florida's biggest polluters.

Both plants emitted sulfur dioxide, fine particulates and smog-forming gases – pollutants linked to heart disease, respiratory problems and cancer. The plants that will replace them will be among the cleanest in the United States, using natural gas rather than oil.

Natural gas no longer enjoys quite the green reputation it used to have, thanks to the controversy over its extraction by means of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which can pollute water and result in the direct release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. But environmentalists had been pushing the company to switch to natural gas for years, and these plants will use less fuel to produce more electricity.

"Riviera, along with a similar project at Cape Canaveral, will be the most efficient units in the U.S., until overtaken by the Port Everglades project that will start up in 2016," said Patrick Gillespie, spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Although the plants were major sources of pollution, South Florida has generally had fairly good air quality for an urban area. With a flat landscape, ocean breezes and an absence of heavy industry, the region never experienced the sort of air pollution that has shrouded Los Angeles or Houston.

At the Riviera Beach plant, more than 650 workers are building the new plant, with construction 47 percent complete, according to FPL. The new plant will be similar to the one to go up at Port Everglades, with gray stacks half as high as the old ones.

Both plants will emit about 90 percent less fine particulates and smog-forming pollutants and no sulfur dioxide. They will also cut in half emissions of greenhouse gases, the pollutants that contribute to global warming.

"All of the pollutants are going to be much less," said Jim Stormer, environmental manager for air and waste for the Palm Beach County Health Department.

The Port Everglades plant, whose first unit went into operation in 1960, was shut down in February, FPL spokesman Neil Nissan said. Last week about 130 workers were salvaging usable equipment such as motors and switch gears, as well as valuable metals such as titanium, copper and aluminum. A 50-year-old turbine from the plant's Unit 1 – made of steel that can be resold - was being dismembered by a worker with a welder's torch.

Once it's stripped completely, the plant will be ready for demolition. Approximately 365 pounds of explosives will be detonated from a command post 1,200 feet away in a sequence of blasts intended to prevent more than one structure from hitting the ground at one time. Over the course of 60 seconds, separate explosions will topple each of the four 350-foot stacks and their companion boilers, with high-explosive shaped charges used to blast through the boiler's steel.

A new power plant will be built on the old footprint, with FPL keeping only the administration building and infrastructure such as water intake pipelines. Replacing the four red and white stacks will be three gray stacks that are 150 feet high, less than half the height of the old stacks.

"The new energy center is going to be cleaner and a lot more fuel efficient," Nissan said.

Cliff Bittle, environmental licensing manager of Broward County's Air Quality Program, said, "there should be a substantial reduction in emissions and an improvement in air quality."

To pay for these projects, the base rate on customers' average monthly bill will rise about $2 once the Riviera Beach plant goes into operation and another $2 when the Port Everglades plant does, according to FPL. But the increase will largely be offset by the decrease in fuel charges on customers' bills, according to the company. Each plant will contribute an additional $20 million in tax revenue to local governments, school districts and other taxing authorities.

Despite being out of operation, both plants continue to serve as important habitat for manatees. Hundreds of the endangered marine mammals have flocked to the plants' warm-water discharge zones. As part of its permits to do the work, FPL is required to provide warm water and will resume doing so in the course of plant operations when each new plant goes into service.